Your name is
read out during a broadcast of several minutes which interrupts the already-slim
national line-up of permitted television programming in post-coup Thailand. A
knock on your door and tens of soldiers come into your house to search for
materials critical of the junta or the monarchy, and to seize electronic
communication material. A letter is sent
to the university department where you are a student or a professor and your
name is among those singled out. An unknown number calls you several times at
strange times of the day and night.

These are
the ways in which targets of Thailand’s military junta, the National Council on
Peace and Order (NCPO), have been notified of their impending arbitrary
detention in the past week. Led by General Prayuth Chan-ocha, the
commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Army, and acting in the name of nebulous
“reform”, on 22 May the NCPO carried out the twelfth successful coup in
Thailand since the end of the absolute monarchy in June 1932. Building on
restrictions put in place by the declaration of martial law two days before the coup, the NCPO has
clamped down on media freedom, outlawed protest and political discussion and
begun arresting those it deems its opponents. The junta claims to have summoned 253 people, while human rights activists instead
have counted more than 300.

Taken
anywhere

The NCPO has
refused to name the locations where people are detained. Under martial law, any
person can be detained for up to seven days without the authorities needing to
bring formal charges or present any evidence. Detention can take place at
irregular places of detention, including military bases or any place that the
junta so designates. For those who are summoned via public broadcast, one is
supposed to report to the Army Club on Thewet Road in Bangkok but then one can
be taken anywhere.

This was the
case with Thanapol Eawsakul, a writer and editor of the progressive Same Sky
magazine and press, Surapot Taweesak, a philosophy lecturer and social critic
who frequently writes about Buddhism, and Pravit Rojanaphruk, a journalist for
the Nation newspaper, who were held
for seven days on a military base in Ratchaburi province. Sukanya Prueksakasemsuk, a human-rights defender and the wife of Somyot Prueksakasemsuk, an editor serving 11 years for his role in
publishing two articles alleged to contain anti-monarchy content, and her two
children were detained following a raid on their house on 25 May. They were
released after being questioned at the Army Club and then told “to refrain from giving interviews, joining any protest or expressing
opinions in public for a while in order to maintain peace”.

It cited the detention of people on all sides of the political spectrum as a sign of fair and just behaviour.

Although those detained have included politicians from all sides of the
political spectrum, ex-servicemen and businesspeople, the prime targets have been
the journalists, writers, activists, teachers and students who dare to think
differently from the establishment. In Mahasarakham, a province in the north-east,
some critical university
lecturers were summoned and told to assimilate the military’s
message and instruct their students not to write messages on or offline that
would propagate anti-coup ideas. There are additional cases of detention,
particularly those in which summons have been informal—heralded by a telephone
call or the arrival of a jeep full of soldiers—in which nothing is known about
the conditions, location or duration of detention.

All those
released must sign a statement asserting that they were not coerced, beaten,
tortured or otherwise harmed. They may not attend political meetings, participate
in political movements or leave the country without permission of the junta
chief, General Prayuth. The penalty for violating these conditions is the same
as that for not responding to a summons: up to two years in prison and/or a
40,000 baht fine.

Despite the
spectre of the prison term or fine, not all those summoned have reported. While
the junta’s spokesperson insists that detainees will be treated well, neither
the treatment of detainees in southern Thailand, where martial law has been in
force for over ten years, nor the junta’s unwillingness to be transparent about
places of detention inspires much confidence. When asked if detainees could
have lawyers, Colonel Winthai Suntharee said that there was no need for detainees to
have lawyers, as they were not offenders. The question a reporter might then
ask—were probing questions also not forbidden by the junta—is why then do people need to
be detained?

Nothing new

Coups are
nothing new in Thailand. The tally is nineteen (including seven failed attempts)
since the end of the absolute monarchy. Arbitrary detention has also recurred
frequently in recent Thai history, at times as part of the repressive state
apparatus put in place by a zealous authoritarian leader or junta after the coup.
During the regime (1958-1973) of Field Marshals Sarit Thanarat and Thanom Kittikhachorn,
individuals deemed “hooligans” could be detained for indefinitely renewable
periods of ninety days. Following the 6 October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University and the coup by the
National Administrative Reform Council, the junta issued an order permitting
arbitrary detention of those deemed a ”danger to society”, including anyone
with dissentient ideas.

The orders
permitting arbitrary detention of “hooligans” and “dangers to society” were respectively
revoked several years after they were promulgated. Both times, a note was
appended to the nullification law explaining that arbitrary detention was an
abuse of state power. In the former case, in 1974, the note said that the
orders contained “provisions that are inappropriate and incompatible with a
democratic system”. When the latter were annulled, in 1979, the note said that
the orders and the practices they engendered were themselves a danger to
society.

Just over a
week after the coup, the junta announced that it was considering setting up
“reconciliation centres” to promote peace and harmony. It cited the detention
of people on all sides of the political spectrum as a sign of fair and just
behaviour. Yet summons to report to the military read out over public broadcast,
unannounced raids and arrests and compulsory conversations with soldiers create
fear and terror, not co-operation.

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Security for the future: in search of a new vision

What does ‘security’ mean to you? The Ammerdown Invitation seeks your participation in a new civic conversation about national security in the UK and beyond. Its authors offer an analysis of the shortcomings of current approaches and propose a different vision of the future. Please use the invitation summary document for seminars, workshops and public meetings, and share the responses and insights that emerge.